(VIETNAM SPECIAL) Return to Vietnam: Back to Ia Drang (1st Cavalry Division)

first time back to Vietnam since 66 they arrived in this faraway land more than 50 years ago I wasn't sure if I really wanted to to come back I believe with these ghosts for 54 years changes you forever brave young men they were trying to kill us they were trying to kill me fighting for love of country and each other that's what hurts so bad Jeb will be Evans Junction City Kansas that's why it hurts when you lose people that you train with that you grew up with in the army Mathews Shelton Cincinnati Ohio and and they're taken away from you in a horrific horrific way William a fellow Staunton Tennessee violent firefight in this remote valley the most memorable thing was simply being shot at ambushed they watched more than 200 friends die my birthday I did was feel my chest and see if I had him my heart was pumping and I was i right I could breathe so I know it wasn't dead haunting memories unfaded for half a century we for survivors of the I drank Valley they left Vietnam talking about I heard but it never left them their nightmares more than one now for the first time these US veterans make their emotional return all these years of denial and all of a sudden you know there's no escape changed men I'm looking for closure in a changed country 50 years ago there was a Vietnam that that we need then you're coming back now I see the changes in the difference in the people it's good to come back their story inspired a best-selling book and a Hollywood movie because all of us wonder why we're still alive and their bravery inspires to this day we as Americans had something in us that allowed us to prevail [Music] speeding up the Saigon River in the beating heart of Viet Nam's largest city this is the last place these men expected to find themselves more than five decades after their first visit here today it's a whole different place different people and so I kind of welcome Bolivia sites first time back since 1966 the Vietnam of today lined with skyscrapers filled with scooters booming with young people 70 percent of this country's population wasn't even alive yet when the war was being waged I would think that the young people today don't really comprehend what happened in the Vietnam conflict and and I don't know that they're terribly interested and that's okay that's okay the more weak the more we can forget war as people in the better off we'll be of the world now I'm gonna cry today tourist attractions are some of the only reminders of the light now I just got to figure out how to places where you can squeeze into tunnels used by the Vietcong during the Tet Offensive that was freaky [Music] or squeeze off the kind of rapid-fire round soldiers did five decades ago [Music] and there are museums where the spoils of a devastating war are all on full display I can't tell you how many wrong but that's the airplane right there but for these men the war that too many seems so distant in both time and geography has never seemed quite this close especially when they walk into a room filled with their former folks Massachusetts and Cape Cod and the other side of the pond over there [Music] and shakes instead of hand-to-hand combat but we got the title okay we like to wear smiles and photos instead of gunfire this is a far cry from their first time here out of the 28 of us that came here together 18 killed that first month these are the men of the 7th cavalry on Cahill B Company 2nd the 7th Calvary 1st Cavalry Division LC x-ray specialist Robert Jones 2nd battalion 7th regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division in LZ x-ray and LZ Albany tab but Ali singer battalion 7th Calvary Headquarters Company common officer LZ x-ray LZ Albany Jim Lawrence executive officer Delta Company 2nd battalion 7th cavalry landing zone x-ray landing zone Albany survivors of one of the bloodiest battles any one unit ever suffered during the entire Vietnam War yeah we're here at this point we're here they've been brought back to the very spot where their friends and fellow soldiers fell a lot of curiosity a lot of you know seen if I can locate position I was then the remote I drank Valley in Viet Nam's Central Highlands the site of the devastating battle of I drank and you're not even worried about getting shot at the Battle of the I drank valley consisted of two locations landing zone x-ray 2nd battalion 7th cab went in and replaced to 1st at the 7th on x-ray and then we moved Overland two landings on all the time looks like we have a good trail here to get us through we come to the trees over there you recognize it 450 US soldiers dropped by helicopter unaware at 2,000 enemy troops lion way LZ is to the right on this return trip with the help of the greatest generations foundation a charity that returns soldiers to the battlefields where they served and David Moore every time they came in they came in in the nick of time son of Hal Moore the man who commanded these forces all those years ago these guys are able to locate the exact spot of the first it's a lot of memories though you can see there is change their story was first made famous by war correspondent joe galloway in the book We Were Soldiers Once and young Mel Gibson made a movie we were soldiers about what happened here but even Hollywood couldn't capture the scale of the carnage throughout the night there was fire fights there was yelling screaming somebody was being killed it was the first major battle between US and North Vietnamese forces and the next day it got even worse we walked into an ambush we allowed the North Vietnamese who just happened to be camped on the banks of the a drying River to deploy in front of us and down our right flank and they sprang the ambush on November the 17th 1965 at about 1:00 or 1:15 in the afternoon a 16 powered battle ensued the enemy shooting from just feet away not being me soldier but about eight feet from me maybe I shot him by the time the three day battle of I drank was over a shocking 234 US soldiers were killed and 245 were wounded still the US was able to claim victory by killing or wounding a staggering 1,200 North Vietnamese soldiers in the battle itself I know I shot and killed one man he was charging me directly if I didn't shoot him he was gonna kick me and there's the tragedy of war that this was a man probably had a father and a mother back in Hanoi he may have had a wife he may have had children and I took his life I took his life and that's been a burden on me all of my life am i pray the tragedy of war is one reason they came back here to confront what they call the ghosts that have haunted them for 54 years but Ally's ghost having Garrett Lee died in my arms that's the face that's the face I see every night when I go to sleep he was a clerk he had about ten days left in your me good guy big guy he was about six-two six-three I tried to pick him up trying to carry him he was hurting so bad so covering blood you screamed and I tried to drag him I said can he hold my shirt and let me straddle your body and try to drag and he passed out and go six inches and screaming and finally it was just he can you're him where I couldn't go anymore bud and the others have journeyed 8,000 miles and waited 54 years to prove they still remember can almost hear them saying thank you you haven't forgotten you remember us The Unforgettable men these are the names that have men of Alpha Company second the seventh from an unforgettable battle in Drita Luna Fresno California who died in this unforgettable place both of them all god bless our family don't forget them thank you guys [Music] [Music] walking that into a hallowed ground where the war dead are buried is a humbling experience from the military military like like Arlington even if those interred here fought on the other side some they would not get the bones but they could get lies some Tomatoes where do you put the names and crew the u.s. lost 234 Americans in the Battle of I drank a number that actually pales compared to the Vietnamese losses and while the u.s. lost more than 58,000 servicemembers as a result of the entire war more than a million North Vietnamese and Vietcong fighters were killed and I didn't know anything like this existed you'll find crowded cemeteries like this throughout Vietnam I haven't seen one of these before so it's no it's interesting to see how they honor their dead I still can't interpret that okay neither is know that's if your country honors you these cemeteries a sobering reminder of the more than 3 million people including civilians who died during the war it's nice to see them honor their their dead and that sacrificing of their soldiers and it goes back to what we've talked about before that war is a horrific thing and both sides suffer when there's a war oh you think you know settings such as this you get a sense like any other National Cemetery you get a sense of magnitude of pain and loss and sacrifice and again you wonder if they're better ways besides killing each other to figure things out and if we'll ever figure that out probably not nope [Music] welcome back as we return to Vietnam with the soldiers of the seventh Cavalry fifty-four years ago they barely made it out alive from a battle that killed more than 230 American soldiers but not all memories they left behind here in Vietnam were bad ones they also left behind some friends Bob Jones made friends with this man the interpreter used by his battalion during the war I had written his address down which I gave to them and I had held up my wallet for years finally took it out and I put it in my desk and I said if I ever get back to Saigon I'm gonna look him up the greatest generations foundation tracked down that address in the middle of Saigon in hopes of a reunion 54 years later so here we are today we'll see what the news is is she here now I'm sorry because this man maybe he's a little house for long time ago okay it wasn't to be the current owner has lived here for 25 years Bob's old friend is long gone I don't think that you know it's a needle in a haystack you know just to know that he may be alive as well like it always he is alight and sorry at least I've fulfilled my commitment this trip has brought back memories of old friendships and it's forged new ones over home-cooked dinners with locals over dancing and so on [Music] two different cultures thrust together by war so many years ago [Music] and reunited in peace you know if we can have our way in an ideal world it would be no more war we came over this country to fight people we didn't know and had no reason to hit him maybe that's the message no we can find peace in ways we don't understand for the men of the 7th cavalry who fought in the I drank Valley this return trip to Vietnam is now over that's part of my closure is getting 1965 and 66 Vietnam out of my head and thinking about Vietnam and the president that's exciting 54 years later this country has changed them once again every over 70 1965 they gather one last time for an emotional dinner and some words from that book that made their story famous jo Galloway's we were soldiers once and young the class of 1965 came out of the old America a nation that disappeared forever in the smoke that billet off the jungle battlegrounds for we fought and led the country that sent us off to war was not there to welcome us home it no longer existed we answered the call of one president who was not dead we followed the orders of another who was hounded from office and haunted by the war he mismanaged so badly many of our countrymen came to hate the war we fought those who hated the most the professionally sensitive were not in the end sensitive enough to differentiate between the war and the soldiers who had been ordered to fight it they hated us as well [Music] and we went to ground in the crossfire as we had learned in the jungles in time our battles were forgotten how sacrifices were discounted and both our sanity and our suitability for life in polite American society were publicly questioned our young old faces chiseled and gaunt from the fever and heat and the sleepless nights now stare back at us lost and damned strangers frozen and yellowing snapshots packed away in cardboard boxes with our medals and ribbons we've rebuilt our lives found jobs or professions married raised families and waited patiently for America to come to its senses as the years passed we searched each other out and found that half-hearted remembered pride of service was shared by those who had shared everything else with us with them and only with them could we talk about what had really happened over there what we had seen what we had done and what we had survived we knew what Vietnam had been like and how we looked and acted and talked smells no one in America did Hollywood got it wrong almost every time waited twisting political knives on the bones of our dead brothers so once just this once this is how it all began what it was really like what it meant to us and what we meant to each other it was no movie when was over the dead did not get up and dust themselves off and walk away the wounded did not wash away the red and go on with life unhurt those who were miraculously unscratched were by no means untouched not one of us left Vietnam the same young man he was when he arrived for we were soldiers [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Greatest Generations Foundation

Views: 149,436

Rating: 4.8676043 out of 5

Keywords: IaDrang Valley, Air Can, US Army, TGGF, X-Ray LZ Xray, LZ Albany, Vietnam, USA, Veterans, Pleiku, They Were Soldiers

Id: 6QK5KeN3kd0

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Dittybopper]

Damn. It looks like the war is now a tourist attraction. Saigon looks way different, and very prosperous. Personally I could not feature ever revisiting Vietnam. Let sleeping dogs lie, best of luck to the Vietnamese people!